Everyone needs a second opinion. You’ve carefully selected your outfit for the evening but you turn to your partner and say. “What do you think, love?” Their face normally says it all, of course. And so it is with cars.

On the daily madness that is the school run between Tokai and Rondebosch in the Western Cape, there is a cheerful newspaper vendor who somehow manages to spot me from 500 meters, regardless what contraption I’m driving and no matter how dark the winter morning. He has a limited repertoire, but nonetheless, he’s a social barometer of all automotive style. He conveys his emotions on my test car through a series of unfathomable clicks, whistles and rude hand gesticulations. Undeterred by a complete absence of teeth, he sounds off about my ride and so I have come to rely on him for my second opinion.

The (fabulous) Renault Megane RS Cup, for example, met with a frown. The curvy Peugeot RCZ elicited a word that rhymed with ‘banker’ and the Hyundai i10 saw him offer me a free copy of the Cape Times. Recently we cruised up to the robot in Jeep’s new Grand Cherokee Overland. “Ya my bru, ‘dis moss a lekker car”. There followed some expletives understood only by the Cape Flats criminal underworld and newspaper vendors. It turns out that he absolutely loved this car and I have some sympathy for his opinion. In fact, a lot of people love this car.

You see, the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee has been completely redesigned. It’s actually a great comeback story. In the same way John Travolta revitalised his career by starring in ‘Pulp Fiction’, I believe this SUV is going to make pretty big comeback for Jeep. It is a stark contrast to the earlier Grand Cherokee, which had ‘low-rent’ interior fittings and plastics, and was frightfully thirsty.

This Jeep shares development tricks and some of its innards with the redesigned Mercedes Benz ML Class (Jeep was owned by DaimlerChrysler during the early development days of this vehicle). This Grand Cherokee has been re-packaged to free up more passenger room, mostly in the back. Although it still only seats five, it looks and feels far roomier than before, even though it falls short of some key competitors in this area.

The driver and front passenger areas are more sculpted and inviting, and the radio and climate controls are easily seen and operated. This Mexican made Grand Cherokee features a cleaner-looking dashboard design that elevates the overall style inside. Higher-quality material choices and consistent textures from door to dash, make the in-car sensation a pleasant one. It’s now certainly on par with the competition.

Jeep has driven 7.5 million ‘customer-equivalent miles’ in the Grand Cherokee, for durability and reliability testing. Overall, they have done well to elevate the car to a level where it’s at least on an even footing with its competitors in this class. The VW Touareg and Discovery 4 will give it a tough time, but it does boast bundles of kit. Keyless ignition, automatic dual-zone air-conditioning, power memory seats, a power tilt-and-telescoping heated steering wheel and a nine-speaker audio system, Bluetooth, USB/iPod interface, reverse parking camera, touchscreen interface and loads more. To top it all, our car had the rear-seat entertainment system with Sirius Backseat TV installed.

We tested the 259 kW V8 with air suspension (it can raise its ride height over rough terrain or lower its height for loading) with its drive-mode selector that matches the powertrain and suspension for specific types of terrain. Also new is a fully independent rear suspension that improves ride quality, giving it a very pleasant car-like on road behaviour.

Our Jeep came with Quadra-Drive II, which adds electronic limited-slip differentials to both axles and Quadra-Lift air suspension, which varies ride height based on driver input or automatically via Selec-Terrain. Off-road, we could not truthfully protect its reputation as a capable performer because we got it stuck in some benign looking mud. What followed were some embarrassing calls followed by the arrival of a Land Cruiser to tow us out. Having said that, it’s got good ground clearance and an advanced four-wheel-drive system so I put our being stuck down to pilot error and the lack of a mechanical diff-lock with the V8′s Quadra-Drive II package.

Those new chiselled lines give the 4×4 quite a different character, matching the BMW X5 for road presence. Get behind the wheel and you’ll immediately notice that the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee drives considerably better than before. Independent front and rear suspension systems and a much stiffer unibody structure help to deliver that promise. The suspension offers a more comfortable ride while also providing a fair amount of stability while cornering; basically, the Grand Cherokee now rides and handles like any other modern crossover.

A much improved car overall then? Convincingly so, but at R638 990, it does need to compete with the X5, Porsche Cayenne, Mercedes ML and other tough competition. Me? I’ll have to ask the newspaper vendor how many ‘papers I’d have to flog to make the astounding R940 it costs to fill the fuel tank up.

What we like…

• Smooth, competent on road manners.
• Interior is 100% better than before.
• Equipment levels high.

What we would like…

• A diesel version.
• A proper hand brake.
• A diff-lock, please!

Richard Webb is the publisher of Blower, South Africa’s longest running car magazine and contributor to SACarFan.